Baileigh Tech~~ Shaping metal with basic tools

I posted a tech thread back in 2008 Tech Month~~Home made metal shaping tools . In this thread I will show the tools that I showed in action.

I am not a great metal shaper but I am persistent.

Let me try to explain this project because it is a little out of my element. I shaped an old school chopper tank. I don't own a bike so this was just a practice exercise. I have been practicing the basics of metal shaping for the past two years, I just do projects like this and I learn a little bit with every practice project.

Let's get started.

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So I don't have any patterns but I have a picture in my head of what I want it to look like. Shaping panels from nothing is one of the things I need to get better at, so this was a good challenge.

I started it off with the top so I cut out a blank and put some reference lines on it, so I had a guide for what I needed to shrink.



Now with a stump I started to shrink the edge. I found what works best for me is to drive your hammer blow into the side of the dish. (Stump shrinking requires a heavy hammer) This hammer blow will cause a tuck, then all you have to do is hammer that tuck out. If you do any kind of sheet metal Fab, I believe a stump is a must have tool.





Alternate sides so you shrink the sides evenly.





After I was done shrinking I went to the beater bag a stretched the center. Not too much to explain here, just stretch it until you have your desired shape.



Now that it is roughed in, it is still really rough so my next move is to the post dolly. Most of my post Dolly's are just odd pieces of metal. For cleaning up the sides I found that a 2'' ball was just about a perfect fit. I marked my highs and lows and worked it accordingly. (low spots on dolly, high spots off dolly)





Here is a picture of the top after some hammer dolly work and a little wheeling.

 

Next it was time for the sides.

I placed the top on a piece of wood and made a paper pattern.



I kinda fu-barred here because the pattern I took was not right. This is what I ended up with and it looks just like the pattern I took.



That was not at all the shape I was looking for, so what I did was shape some foam that I had laying around and then placed the top onto the foam and took a new paper pattern.



This gave me the correct pattern and the new shape was more of what I was looking for.

I made the sides in two pieces, I am splitting the radius in half. Half on the sides and half with the top. This will put my weld seam in the middle of the radius. I used the stump to shrink the top edge of the sides.



After I had one side shaped, I made a flex pattern to shape the other side. A flex pattern is a very accurate pattern to help guide you.

A flex pattern is made up from a low stick masking tape laid down and then with some packing tape over the masking tape. Actually I use a re-enforced duct tape, I actually like it better and it is a few bucks cheaper per roll.









Then I just shape the panel until it fits the pattern perfectly and it is a perfect match.

 

Now that I had the sides shaped, I welded the three pieces together. This was another reason for this practice project. I have been practicing tig welding, so this was a great way to get some practice in.




Next move was to re-stretch the haz of my weld and do some more hammer dolly work, to blend it all together.



After that was done I went over it with a shrinking disk to catch anything I might have missed. I then cleaned it up. I cleaned it up more than I would normally do but this is not going to get painted.





The next thing I did was check the arrangement, I drew a grid on it and checked it from side to side.





Here it is pretty well cleaned up.




I don't know why it is showing it twice

 

Nice work! I will use some of those techniques. I hope I can get near those results.

 

Saving this thread.

 

After it was welded up my next step was to tip a flange on the bottom to give me something good to weld to. I put a layer of tape around the bottom. I did this to give me a guide line and also to help protect it from gawling the metal. I used a crescent wrench to tip the edge.





Next I made a pattern and cut out the bottom blanks.



Then I made the tunnel. I used a hand rail to bend it over, then heated the metal and bent it around the hand rail.







I don't have a frame to check how much I need to cut out for the tunnel. So I asked a friend to give me the measurements on a two up frame. Then I just made a quick jig to check it on. Then cut it a little at a time until I was satisfied.

 

I was lucky because my friend has a bike with a two up frame and he had it torn down. So I was able to go over and see what it looked like on a bike before welding in the tunnel.



Then I got lucky again because I did not want to put any money into this and my Dad had an old sporster tank he picked up at a swap meet. I was able to rob the filler neck and bung off of it.










Now I needed some mounting brackets for the bottom of the tank.

 

Here is some work I did on mine.

 

Now I have it ready to where I can weld in the bottom but the first thing I did was weld in the filler neck, so it could breath while welding in the bottom.











Then I welded in the bottom






After some cleaning up here it is all welded up, minus the petcock bung and mounting brackets. I will probably weld them in, if I ever have a use for the tank. Because as of now it will just sit on a shelf. I am going to have a friend pinstripe it for me.








I can not get this video posted but here is a link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3TuF612egY

 

Anyway that's it I hope you enjoyed it. When my wife gets home I will have her edit it. I'm better with the hammer than I am at writing

 

That is some nice work.

 

great tech and write up!!

 

I think you mounted your tank the way I was thinking but did you weld caps over it?

Bike looks killer.

 

VERY NICE.

Good to see great work with basic tools.

 

That is what I was trying to get across. If you don't have the tools there are alternatives that will allow you to get the job done.

I shaped that whole tank not counting my welder with fifty dollars worth of tools. Oops and my hammer it cost a hundred but I could have used a baseball bat hammer and had the same results.

 

I guess I will need to spice this up a little. I know this is a hot rod forum and I thought a motorcycle tank would would go over like a terd in a punch bowl.It was just what I was working on at the time of the tech week.

The main goal was to try and show what you could do with minimal tools, which is a pretty common thing around here because that is about all I have.

If there are any questions on any of the techniques that I have shown, I could try and show how to do it a little better.

 

Cool! Nice work!

 

A real work of art, AND with basic tools! Tribute to your talent.

Your good explanation and pics will give us hackers some courage to give it a try...thanks

 

Awesome. It's hard to believe that you have only been metal shaping for two years You got skills.

Doc.

 

Your finish work is just great on that tank. And while this is not a bike site it is a hot rod that focuses on doing it your self with good results and your tank hits everyone of those marks IMHO!

Kevin
LFD Inc.

 

Thank you everyone for the nice complements.

I have stopped everything that I was doing for the past two years and did nothing but practice the basics of metal shaping.

I have always been fascinated with sheet metal fab work and when I got involved in metal shaping I really just devoted myself to it.

I am still really slow and have to do things twice sometimes. The times I do have to redo somthing I messed up, that is where I learn the most. I learn more from my failures then I do my success.

I'm 40 and I wish I would have started at a younger age but I hope this is something my son will want to get involved with.


I do believe if you spend sometime practicing the basics, you can reproduce any panel that you might need.

 

I really hope that going to another website....Copying a master metal fabricator....giving no credit........then posting it here to win a prize....doesn't count.

You have great skills...but that is not right.

 

I don't get it; every bit of information I can get helps me learn, it seems to me that the "prize" is mine. There are a gazillion bits of information on the web about this subject to learn from, how do you give credit to them all? This is an olde art, all of it was copied from someone else, what other website(s) are you talking about? How is sharing a skill that you've (l)earned worthy of derision? Observation AND practice is what makes you good. To learn something, I find it best to listen to several different explanations of the same thing, if I can't understand one then maybe I can understand another, it helps the light go on; I just don't see whats wrong with this thread.

Thanks for the post, jhnarial, it was both informative and encouraging.

P.S., so what if he doesn't win? The point of the contest is to help dissiminate information, isn't it? Or is this just a beauty contest?

 

Excellent tech, Johnny. I think I've held off making a stump long enough. What is the depth of the hollow in your stump? Diameter?

 

OK, the tank build is similar to Jesse James' tutorial on Metal Church with the difference being that jhnaria does it with very basic tools and in the Jesse James tutorial that jj mack directed me to, it is done with a Pettingell, Pullmax, etc. This doesn't reduce the value of jhnaria's post for me, but an explanation that this is "what Jesse did, but with much more basic tools" would have been helpful on several levels. I hope this doesn't turn into a bigger dispute than it is worthy of, a situation that normally comes about through some sort of misunderstading, less clarity than needed, etc.

I've seen big blowups on other forums as well, almost always because of misunderstandings of one sort or another.

 

JJ mack

Besides my weld seem being in the same place as Jessie"s, tell me one method I copied.

When I watched the videos, I was thinking wow if I had to wait until I had 200,000 dollars for equipment to shape this tank, I will never be able to do it.


I posted a thread on his site and followed along but did it with my own methods and used maybe 100 dollars worth of tools. That is a big difference in my pocket book. I wanted to try and show you don't have to be rich to be able to do some metal shaping.You can get started with just a few dollars and a little bit of knowledge.

You asked me yesterday and I answered you and you erased your reply.

I did not mention that I followed along with Jessie because I feel he is a private man and did not want to disrespect that man by dropping his name.

The first English Wheel I ever seen was on MM 1 and have been interested in it ever since. He's got me out into the shop more then once.

You going to be a little girl and erase your reply again?

 

Exactly

I have done several tutorials on this site when there were no prizes being given out (look up my profile). I did it because the info was given to me and I was just given it back. I have also learned alot from reading here on this forum and from others. Trading information is what these sites are all about.

 

Takes all kinds aye..
Just let us enjoy fine work.

 

Nope. I thought you put up a very good explaintion and gave the credit where it was due. Therefore I felt no need to "call you out" so I deleted my post to show YOU respect. Then you deleted yours. If you had not followed the Metal Church vids...chances are you never would have built that tank, nor posted it here. I said in both posts you have great skills and talent.

 

That's a huge call to make.

It will definitely put off a lot of people from posting their work on here now.
Who wants to be interrogated by the likes of you? Not me for sure.